We convey to you the
historical facts about the Vietnam War in which the death of Venerable
Thich Quang Duc on June 11, 1963, led to the collapse of the entire
Republic of Vietnam in the following years.

Please help us to spread this truth to the media around the world.

With sincere appreciation.

July 31, 2017

Truc Lam Tran Nhan Viet Quoc, The Vietnamese Historical Association

***

The Venerable
Thich Quang Duc, the symbol of national essence and Dharma, also
symbolizes the destruction of Vietnamese national unity, the no-merit
superstition, and the total surrender to Chinese demands.

I. The definition of words

On June 11, 1963, Venerable Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire. The late President of South Viet Nam Ngo Dinh Diem said about this event in the afternoon of the same day: (start of literal quote)

“while the
reconciliation of the nation is proceeding well, suddenly early
today, for the harsh propaganda which intentionally hides the truth;
and pushes the suspicion toward the goodwill of government has caused
some credulous people to take their own lives in vain. The loss of
lives saddened me deeply(end of quote)

Therefore, from this
context, we can call the self-fire setting of Venerable Quang Duc a
murder instead of so-called “self-immolation” as it was called before.

Also, for the matters of
proper title and the righteousness of this brutal murder, the Unified
Buddhist Church of Vietnam, and the Communist Party of Vietnam
mistakenly called the horrible incident “Venerable Quang Duc’s
martyrdom” for the last 54 years.

Proper title: Term properly used.
For example: “King is king, subordinates are subordinate, Father is a
father, son is a son” – Confucius doctrine - (Vietnamese Dictionary
authored by Le Van Duc and Friends, abridged by Le Ngoc Tru, page 294).

Righteousness: Just cause, by
just and truth. For instance: Must know how to differentiate just
cause from puppet / fake administrations. (Vietnamese Dictionary
authored by Le Van Duc and Friends, abridged by Le Ngoc Tru, page 295).

II/ The political movement of the
Buddhist in Central Vietnam during the First Republic of Vietnam from
May/1963 to June 11, 1963:

From 1945 to 1963, the
Buddhist of Vietnam has been divided into three different groups with
different forms of activities, as follows:

Southern Buddhism, including the South Vietnamese Buddhist Association, Sangha, Theravada and some other organizations.

Following the
Congress from May 6 to 9 (in the 1st to 4th of lunar year calendar) in
1951, the General Buddhist Association of Vietnam (Abbr. GBAVN)
selected the Most Venerable Thich Tinh Khiet as the Supreme Leader.
Although these three Buddhist organizations are parts of the Buddhist
Congregation, they still have separate, unorganized activities. The
core of the GBAVN is Central Vietnam Buddhism, a relatively
old-fashioned organization.

The Honorable Ngo Dinh
Diem returned to the country in the role of Prime Minister and then
became the First President of South Vietnam in 1955, the starting year
of the First Republic of Vietnam. The first elected president of the
Republic of Vietnam had a special policy of support for Vietnamese
Buddhism even though he was a devout Catholic.

Following are some concrete evidence (i.e. constructions, restorations of some prominent temples in Saigon):

The Construction of Xa-Loi Temple located on Ba Huyen Thanh Quan Street in Saigon.

Vinh-Nghiem Temple located on Cong Ly Street.

Nam-Thien-Nhat-Tru Temple.

When being awarded the
“Magsaysay Leadership Award” as the most brilliant leader in Asia at
the time, President Ngo Dinh Diem was humble and secretly offered $
15,000 (the entire monetary value of the said prize) to the Dalai Lama
when the Highness and his fellow Tibetan monks and nuns left Tibet
right after the Chinese occupation; and sought asylum in India and Sri
Lanka.

From 1955 to the protests
at Hue’s Radio Station broke out on May 8, 1963, the Central Buddhists
of Venerable Thien Minh and Venerable Tri Quang has had a very good
relationship with Mr. Ngo Dinh Can – The President’s younger brother.

Mr. Ngo Dinh Can
treated the Buddhists in Central Vietnam, and Venerable Tri Quang and
Venerable Thien Minh in particular, with full respect and support.
There were always generous supplies of foods to Tu-Dam
Temple, for example; provided oversea trips for the central Buddhist
monks to attend international conferences, including Venerable Tri
Quang. For the favors given by Mr. Ngo Dinh Can to all of Buddhist
monks (from Tu-Dam Temple), Venerable Tri Quang was the person who
benefited the most.

On the Easter holiday in
early April 1963, President Ngo Dinh Diem made a visit to his fellow
citizens; and he found out that the Catholics’ religious flag was not
hoisting consistently with the directions of his administration.
Returning from the said trip, the President immediately issued another
ordinance on how to honor the national flag about the honoring of all
religious flags; as such, no religious flags were to be discriminated.

At the beginning of
May 1963, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the ordination of
Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc in Hue, many Catholic flags were incorrectly
hoisted (i.e. not complying with the president’s ordinance regarding
the regulating the display of religious flags). Also in May, there is
Buddha's birthday. Similarly to the Catholic flagging, the Buddhist
flag was not in line with the said presidential ordinance.

The ordinance mentions
that religious flags should not be hung higher than national flags.
President Ngo Dinh Diem was very respectful of the national status, so
the flag of any religion was not allowed to hang higher than the
national flag. Also, during his time of visiting the countryside, the
president did not allow the old or worn out flags to be displayed in
any way.

The administration’s electronic
memo number of 9195, dated 5/6/1963, which reminded the correct
display of the Buddhist flag on Buddha's birthday has not arrived in
time in Hue; As a matter of fact, this memo has been delivered to the
Representative Office and Thua Thien province Chief on the afternoon of
May 6th. Consequently, Mr. Ngo Dinh Can's Advisory and Guidance Office would not receive it until the very next day (i.e. May 7th, 1963).

Ironically, the Tu-Dam temple already possessed the said text in advance(?).

The reason of which Mr.
Ngo that Dinh Can knew the memo too late was Mr. Ngo Dinh Can no longer
having the trust of the President ever since the Bishop Ngo Dinh Thuc
returned to Hue.

During
an emergency meeting in the Advisory and Guidance Office, Mr. Ngo
Dinh Can decided along with Mr. Nguyen Van Dang, Thua Thien’s Province
Chief, Captain Minh, etc., to postpone the presidential order stated
within the memo. In another word, the province of Thua Thien let the
Buddhist hoist their flag the way they wanted.

The province’s information
vehicles have announced that the province Chief temporary allowed the
Buddhist flags to be raised as usual; However, since the Tu-Dam temple
already had the presidential memo number 9195 before Mr. Ngo Dinh Can’s
office did, the Buddhists were confused. Even though the information
vehicles tried to call for the public to keep calm; the atmosphere got
too intense and seemingly ready to explode any moment.

Around 6:00 PM,
approximately a thousand Buddhist followers and monks from the Tu-Dam
temple had gathered in front of the Province Palace to protest against
the presidential memo regarding the hanging of Buddhist flag.
Presently at the palace, as for the government officials, there were
Mr. Nguyen Van Dang, Thua Thien Hue province Chief; Mr. Deputy Chief;
Mr. Phong Thua Thien’s Police Chief. On the Buddhist’s side, Venerable
Thien Minh, Tri Thu, and Tri Quang appeared altogether.

Of the three, Ven.
Tri Quang was the most aggressive. He protested and suggested that the
government officers and police in the morning of May 7th.had
taken down the Buddhist flag; some even tore off the flags. Mr. Dang,
the Province Chief and Mr. Phong, the Police Chief, consistently
stated that this was not the case; It was not true because the
provincial authority already received the presidential order to
postpone the regulation of the religious flag displays.

Mr. Phong, the Police
Chief asked the Venerable to tell him exactly where the locations which
have encountered this unfortunate cases were? Venerable Tri Quang was
unable to give out any evidence.

In the end, everything is
resolved peacefully with the agreement between the government officials
and the Venerable: Thua Thien Province Chief sent out three
information trucks with loudspeakers going around the city to announce
that the Buddhist flag hanging status has changed at all. On these
trucks, there were also Buddhist monks and followers to work on
information of the situation.

On the morning of May 8,
1963, Buddhist followers gathered to Tu-Dam Temple en masse to
celebrate Buddha's birthday. However, as the number of participants
increased unusually, many people were whispering that the government
may crack down on Buddhists this morning and suppress the procession as
well.

Attending the ceremony at
Tu-Dam Temple, for the government officials, there was the presence of
Major General Le Van Nghiem, Representative Ho Dac Khuong, and Province
Chief Nguyen Van Dang. All dressed up as Buddhist followers as well.

During the ceremony, Tri
Quang has made an anti-government sermon as never done before. In
which, he harshly criticized the government.

At the same time, he
called on all Buddhist followers to stand up and fight for the
religious equality. There were banners condemning the government on
religious discrimination all over places. The government officials
present at the site seemed very calm and tolerated throughout the
ceremony. The incident was reported to Mr. Ngo Dinh Can. Mr. Can threw
his hand in the air and said: "Why did Ven. Tri Quang behave like
that?"

In the evening of the same
day, around 19:30, the ceremony organizers had announced to cancel a
gathering of followers at the Tu-Dam temple to burn fireworks.
Instead, people were invited to gather on a Hue radio station near
Trang Tien bridge. As planned, the station manager Ngo Ganh had
prepared to broadcast the pre-recorded a Buddhism program. Buddhist
followers of Tu-Dam temple pressured the station manager to broadcast
directly the morning ceremony including the anti-government sermon by
Ven. Tri Quang. Nevertheless, Mr. Ngo Ganh refused to give in to this
pressure because any broadcasting session must have been screened and
approved in advance.

The situation wass getting
intense! The gathering people began to throw rocks and bricks at the
radio station. Mr. Ngo Ganh had to call to Major Dang Sy for help
every 5 minutes.

There was a young monk who
climbed on the roof of the radio station called on the people to move
forward. Ven. Tri Minh and Tri Quang had called for people to calm
down, but it was too late…

Major Dang Sy slowly
approached the radio station because of the thick crowd. When he was
about 50 yards from the station door, suddenly there was a loud bang,
right in front of the door, then another bang followed.

Chaos and horror had covered the Hue radio station.

Some officers standing
near the station said that the explosion shook everything up, and the
sparkling lights from the explosives was something they had never seen
in their military service or training.

During the chaos, there
were voices saying, or shouting as "Run this way ... Do not go that
way… Dang Sy’s cars will run over us.”

It was an awful mess.

They did not die because
of shrapnel, but because of the stampede and the explosion’s pressure
incurred by about 5 kilograms of TNT.

The list of dead Buddhist followers that included:

1/ Dang Van Cong, 13-year-old;

2/ Tran Thi Phuoc Tu, 17;

3/ Nguyen Thi Yen, 20;

4/ Huynh Thi Ton Nu Tuyet Hoa, 12;

5/ Le Thi Kim Khanh, 17;

6/ Nguyen Van Dat, 13;

7/ Nguyen Thi Ngoc Lan, 12;

8/ Nguyen Thi Phuc, 15.

Among the victims, there
was a Catholic woman. As such, the dead victims at Hue radio station
were eight Buddhists and one Catholic.

Immediately after the
blast in front of the radio station, Venerable Thien Minh stood up and
took the blame in front of government officials including Mr. Nguyen
Van Dang, Thua Thien Province Chief, Major Dang Sy, and another person
who was a Lieutenant Colonel and director of Judicial Police Corp.

For the next day,
the both Government Officials and Buddhist Temple have done nothing
drastically. The local Government Officials were actually waiting for
directions and resolutions from the Central Administration in Saigon.
Not until May 10, the Central Administration in Saigon sent the new
minister of interior, Mr. Bui Van Luong, to Hue to start the
investigation; however, all seemed to be just a routine administrative
procedure.

Around 1966, Captain
Scott (Advisor to the Battalion 1/3 of the First Infantry Division
since 1965) told Captain Buu (cousin of Major Dang Sy) that he was the
one who masterminded the explosion at Hue radio station at 10:30 PM on
the May 8th, 1963.

Back to the situation of
Hue after the horror night in Hue radio station, after a few days in
fear of the government’s suppression, when it became quiet, Ven. Tri
Quang regained calm and also came up with some requests such as the
receiving of victims’ bodies for burial; however, the government has
turned down such request. Ven. Tri Quang then proposed a 5-point
declaration which would be the platform of the Buddhist protest for the
years to come:

1. Request that the
government of the Republic of Vietnam to permanently withdraw the
ordinance for not allowing the displays of religious flags in public.

2. Request that the
Buddhism be entitled to a special treatment as that of the Catholics
missionaries as stated in the Religious Ordinance 10.

3. Request that the government has to stop the persecution of Buddhist followers.

4. Request that Buddhist monks and Buddhist followers are to be free to propagate and worship the Buddhist faith.

5. Request that the
government adequately compensate the victims’ families, and prosecute
the persons who masterminded the dead incident.

The Declaration was signed
by the Most Venerable Thich Tinh Khiet. However, in the United Nations
Report on the Situation of Buddhism in 1963, it was reported that
Venerable Tinh Khiet did not want to sign this document. He was forced
to do it.

May 09, 1963, the
Inter-sectional Committee for Buddhist Protection was established and
headed by the Most Venerable Thich Tam Chau, the office was located at
Xa Loi Temple instead of An Quang Temple.

It is unfortunate that
a large number of Buddhist monks and nuns who led the Vietnamese
Buddhism movements were wrong to follow the policy of Beijing when they
repeatedly attacked the government of South Vietnam before 4/30/1975
but kept silent in front of the merciless crimes of Vietnam Communist
and Beijing since then.

21/ Before the
explosion at Hue radio on the evening of 05/08/1963, the relation and
communication between Mr. Ngo Dinh Can and Ven. Tri Quang was in good
terms. However, because of political ambition as well as the need to
kill to keep people silenced have blurred the human conscience; Ven.
Tri Quang has lost heart and mind of a Buddhist monk. After the First
Republic of South Vietnamese was overthrown, Ven. Tri Quang has exerted
pressure on the junta government led by General Nguyen Khanh to
hastily execute Mr. Ngo Dinh Can on 05/09/1964 at Chi-Hoa’s Jailhouse.

The rumor of 9-cell
detention center, which set up by Ngo Dinh Can detain the innocents,
is all systematically fabricated by the Buddhists and Vietnamese
communists.

22/ The United
Nations delegation's report on the subject of Buddhism in 1963 allowed
the Vietnamese Historical Association to conclude that there was no
repression of Buddhism as well as stigmatization of Buddhism and
Buddhist followers.

23/ Stop writing
about the “memorial” of Venerable Thich Quang Duc self-immolation as
well as Buddhist suppression in 1963. These were the groundless
superstitions and allegations created by the propaganda of both Vietnam
and Chinese communists.

24/ The Vietnamese
Historical Association has sent a request to Mr. Tam Dieu Nguyen Xuan
Quang, who was the director of websites “thuvienhoasen.org” and
“sachhiem.net,” as well as the other authors who wrote several articles
on the “memorial” theme of Thich Quang Duc Bodhisattva in the guidance
of Communist Vietnam. They all would rather return to the halo of
Buddha.

25/ Finally, it
showed that Quang Duc's death did not have righteousness, justification
as it was falsely proclaimed. The name and the cause themselves were
fabricated by Communists of Vietnam and Beijing. People should not be
mesmerized by this senseless death.

26/ Venerable Thich
Quang Duc was drugged and burned to death. Consequently, how could he
leave the so-called “immortal heart”? An immortal heart or relics are
only originated by a natural death, a death in the state of
tranquility.

The Most Venerable Thich
Quang Duc and his immortal heart were simply represented the shackles,
slavery, superstitious spirit which misled the Vietnamese Buddhists
followers became unwilling to stand up against the Viet Cong and the
Chinese Communist aggressors.

IV. The road in front of the Vietnamese Buddhist followers:

If the Most Venerable
Thich Quang Duc was the symbol of Nationalist Spirit and Buddhist
Teachings, then, today, Vietnam must be a truly developed and civilized
nation. A proud country which stood in line with the other nations in
the East Sea regions. A country for the happy and prosper people.

In reality, as of 2017 -
54 years after the death of Venerable Thich Quang Duc - Vietnam is
still in a state of unprecedented misery. From the Vietnam sea
(Southeast Asia Sea) to Paracels, Spratlys islands include occuped by
Chinese, the bauxite disaster of the Central Highlands, the Ha Tinh
Formosa disaster lasting more than a year (04/2016 until now). The
Chinese crowded the provinces of Vietnam, to the drought disaster in
the Mekong Delta and hundreds of other catastrophes have been fallen on
Vietnam.

In such a situation, is it
proud to have fun in writing the “memorial” articles as Dr. Tran Hong
Lien distributed via site “sachhiem.net”?

If Mr. Tran Hong Lien
still has the minimum self-esteem of the writers, please immediately
stop promoting the superstition and the slavery to the Chinese
aggressors.

Vietnamese
Buddhists followers would rather bravely strip off the superstitious
slave shack. Firstly, it is to save ourselves and our families.
Secondly is to chase out the Chinese invaders, and completely disband
the Communist Party of Vietnam and rescue the Vietnamese race.

V. Conclusion:

Once Vietnam gets away
from the Chinese invaders and becomes free and democratic, the first
thing people and Vietnamese Buddhists followers needed to do was to
immediately destroy the two superstitious statues which represented the
slavery to Chinese aggressors: Ho Chi Minh’s and Thich Quang Duc’s.